Human need, not capitalist greed

The benefits of a socialist system rests essentially on replacing profit as the primary motivator for production with mutual aid. Capitalism itself has provided the prerequisites that will bring this to the fore. It has laid the foundations of creating relative abundance for all and it has progressively eliminated the need for routine labour to produce this abundance. From the 19^th century onwards, capitalism has developed immense productive forces but it has done so at the cost of excluding the great majority of people from influence over production. It put the rights of private ownership before the collective rights of mankind. Although the world contains resources which could be made to provide a decent life for everyone, capitalism has been incapable of satisfying the elementary needs of the world’s population. It proved unable to function without devastating crises and mass unemployment. It produced social insecurity and glaring contrasts between rich and poor. Socialism was born as a movement of protest against the problems inherent in capitalist society. The capitalistic system of production, under the rule of which w live, is the production of commodities for profit instead of for use for the private gain of those who own and control the tools and means of production and distribution. Out of this system of production and sale for profit spring the problems of misery, want, and poverty that, as a deadly menace, now confronts civilisation. The essence of capitalism is the exploitation of workers and the orientation toward profit at the expense of every human being and every human need. We can never use the logic of capital to build new social relations.

One immediate problem for a post-capitalist society is that it has to emerge from conditions created by its capitalist predecessor, socialism grows directly out of capitalism, so the old division of labour cannot be magically eliminated overnight. Everyone understands that it is impossible to achieve the vision of socialism in one giant leap forward. It is not simply a matter of changing property ownership. This is the easiest part of building the new world. Far more difficult is changing productive relations, social relations in general, and attitudes and ideas. Certainly Marx saw the need for a "first phase" of socialism but only because of the low development of the productive forces of his time. This is further shown where he states: "The distribution of the means of consumption at any time is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves." And he also points out that "Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development thereby determined."

Obviously to satisfy everyone’s needs there must be the greatest of plenty of everything. In addition, there must have developed a change in the attitude of people toward work—instead of working because they have to, people will work because they want to, both out of a sense of responsibility to society and because work satisfies a real need within their own lives. Under capitalism, these private enterprises dominate the economy and operate for the purpose of generating wealth for their owners by extracting it from working people who are paid only a small fraction of what their labor produces. Socialism turns this around so that the class that produces the wealth can collectively decide how it will be used for the benefit of all. Socialism prioritises human needs and eliminates the profit motive that drives war, ecological destruction, and inequalities based on gender, race, or nationality. Like capitalism, socialism must be international so that global resources can be shared. No country can be truly independent of the global economy.

Socialism is, by definition, democratic hence an early alternative label for the socialist movement being social democracy. Without freedom there can be no socialism. Socialism can be achieved only through democracy. Democracy can be fully realised only through socialism. Since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Leninism and Trotskyism has distorted the socialist  tradition beyond recognition. It has built up a rigid theology which is incompatible with the critical spirit of Marxism. Lenin used Marx's philosophy to perform the socialist revolution but he completely removed Marx's notion of equality of people claiming that workers have not developed enough knowledge and consciousness, and therefore they must be guided. Socialists aim to achieve freedom and justice by removing the exploitation which divides men under capitalism, state-capitalists seek to sharpen those class divisions only in order to establish the dictatorship of a bureaucracy and of a one-party leadership. The Socialist Party supports the idea of a delegative form of democracy that calls upon the working class to decide their fate for themselves. Workers without any access to decision-making do not accept social ownership as their own, and thus may well choose to have no responsibility towards the same.

If socialism means more than state ownership or state intervention, then how should it be understood? A socialist economic system would consist of a system of production and distribution organised to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit driven by the accumulation of capital. Accounting would be based on physical quantities, a common physical magnitude, or a direct measure of labour-time in place of financial calculation. The characteristic of the new socialist society is that (a) control of production be fully vested in the producing individuals themselves and (b) that the social character of labour is asserted directly, not after the fact. In other words, productive activity in this socialism is social not because we produce for each other through a market but because we consciously produce for others. And, it is social not because we are directed to produce those things but because we ourselves as people within society choose to produce for those who need what we can provide. Our needs as members of society—both as producers and as consumers—are central. This is a society centred on a conscious exchange of activity for communal needs and communal purposes. It is a society of new, rich human beings who develop in the course of producing with others and for others.  The point of social ownership is to ensure that the social brain and the social brawn are devoted to the full development of human beings rather than used for private purposes.

Socialism is the science of human association reduced to a practical proposition, based upon a study of society. It is an interpretation of the past, a diagnosis of the present, and a forecast of the future. It recognizes that life is constantly passing through a process of evolution. It is therefore founded upon an enduring basis of fact against prejudice.

The common good is our fundamental purpose as a movement and as a party. Socialism aims to liberate the peoples from dependence on a minority which owns or controls the means of production. It aims to put economic power in the hands of the people as a whole, and to create a community in which free men and women work together as equals. Socialism can still continue to attract, inspire, and mobilise a social movement capable of ending capitalism’s rule. Socialism will establish a new social and economic system in which people will take responsibility for and control of their neighbourhoods and all the administrative organs, plus the production and distribution of all goods and services. The Socialist Party stands for a fundamental transformation of the economy, focusing on production for need not profit. The Cooperative Commonwealth is its goal. In the end, socialism will succeed or fail depending not on the activities of we in the Socialist Party but whether the growing anger against the injustices and failures of the present system can be channeled and linked together to create not just a call for change, but a challenge to the ruling order itself.